Question Time: An Author's Life

A weekly(ish) feature for paid subscribers

Jackson Houser asks: Ah, the life of a successful writer! So glamorous, if you overlook the plodding research, the enervating search for the way to clearly explain something complex, and having to deal with dull people, who think you mean nearly the opposite of what you wrote, among other things. So you have an agent, who can help in dealings with publishers, I suppose. But what else do agents do? How does a writer wind up with an agent anyway? We have seen portrayals of theatrical agents, who are shown as ranging from abrasive wheeler-dealers all the way over to superficial wheeler-dealers; but I assume and hope that literary agents are not like that--are they?

In a comment on my post about silk, he also asked for elaboration on what I called “with the significant media advantages that come from first publishing in the UK.” These two questions allow to discuss aspects of what it’s like to be a non-celebrity nonfiction author.

Thanks to an invitation from my friend Amy Alkon, I belong to a group of nonfiction writers in L.A. This isn’t the kind of writer’s group where you read and critique each other’s manuscripts. It focuses on the business side of writing, and members write everything from popular histories to nutrition books. Several do regular ghost-writing. Some have Hollywood connections. (Amy and I are decided outliers politically.) Our irregular meetings usually feature a speaker with some kind of connection to the biggest question in the writer’s life: How do I get paid? The answer tends to be depressing. The speaker will typically say something to the effect of, well, my part of the business doesn’t pay much but it will give you publicity that might get you paid by some other part of the business. Then the next speaker, representing that some other part, will say the same thing. It makes us all a little crazy.

In the 21st century, the fundamental fact of professional writing is that an overabundance of supply is running up against limited attention and even more limited sources of revenue. In this post from last October, I explain how advances work and go into specifics on my book sales and the broader publishing context. The bottom line is that most of my books put me in the top 2% of authors—The Power of Glamour didn’t sell as well as the others—but the numbers are still small.

Jackson asks about agents. I got my original agents, who still represent The Future and Its Enemies thanks to a clause I didn’t notice in the contract, because I had met one of them at a conference. They were politically simpatico. Unfortunately, their view of me was narrowly political. They didn’t understand my broader interests. Their ideal Virginia Postrel title would have been A Libertarian Manifesto, presumably along the lines of this book by David Boaz. Not what I had in mind. But they did find me an interested editor, and The Future and Its Enemies got published.

Before I shopped the proposal for The Substance of Style, I was approached by the Andrew Wylie, who is one of the top agents in the business. A friend had recommended me to him. When I met Wylie, I was impressed with his knowledge of The Future and Its Enemies and his savvy in mentioning his representation of Hernando de Soto. I’d already decided I needed a new agent. So I moved. My previous agents were mightily angry, all the more so since Wylie is known in the business as “the Jackal” for his willingness to poach other people’s clients. Despite that moniker, his agency is quite high hat and WASPy. Everyone has excellent manners, and all their emails start with “Dear.” I’m one of their more obscure clients and usually start my emails with “Hi.”

Wylie represented me personally on The Substance of Style, and I got a shockingly large advance, partly because of good timing and partly because of his deal-making skills. Since then, I have been represented by his deputy Sarah Chalfant, who is based in London, and also work with two younger agents in New York. One of them, Jackie Ko, knows children’s books and gave me vital feedback on the drafts of my manuscript. I did two major rewrites under her guidance until we arrived at what we both think is a good book. She’s currently shopping it around but from what I can tell, few publishers work in August. We’ve gotten a few turndowns, but mostly we’re still waiting to hear.

Before I write a proposal, I discuss possible ideas with the agents and see what they find appealing. Once I write a proposal—or, in the case of the kid’s book, a manuscript—they put together a list of likely editors, create a pitch letter, send it out, and follow up. For me, agents are primarily deal makers who identify editors who might be interested in a project and, if one makes an offer, negotiate the terms. In the case of The Fabric of Civilization, for instance, Basic Books made two offers, one for North American rights and one for world rights. Knowing my great desire to be published in the U.K., Sarah suggested asking for an intermediate sum for world English rights, and they went for it. That’s why you can find copies in Australia and India too.

My agents have also proven good at getting deadline extensions and, in the case of The Power of Glamour, keeping the project going when the editor and I were horribly mismatched.¹ Sarah several times talked me down from pulling the book and at least once kept the editor from canceling the contract. Fortunately, when I’d all but lost hope, Simon & Schuster closed The Free Press and moved my book to its main imprint and better treatment. When one editor quits, as they tend to do, the agent will recommend another one at the same press. That worked out well for The Fabric of Civilization, although my editor, whom I’d hoped to continue with on future projects, left on maternity leave (as they do) and never came back.

So my relationship with my agents isn’t the kind of frequent contact an actor or a screenwriter might have, because my agents only represent me on books. Most of my writing is freelance work where I negotiate directly. When I tried my hand at a TV pilot, Sarah connected me with an entertainment agent, who was upbeat, gave me feedback, and, when I submitted a second draft, ghosted me. That’s Hollywood.

The Attention Deficit

The best way to sell a book is to be famous. The second best way is to have famous friends who will publicly recommend your book to their many admirers.

For the rest of us, there is a desperate scramble for attention. Here, as you can see from my sales, I am in the upper tail. I can get an excerpt published in the WSJ Review section² and write articles for USA Today and the Globe and Mail. My books get reviewed in The New York Times Book Review, which is great.³ But they get meh reviews from people who resent their intellectual dimensions. Not so great.⁴ I can’t expect interviews on NPR or TV shows. But I get on a lot of podcasts.

The competition for attention is the context of my observation about the advantages British authors enjoy in America. The truth is that I don’t know a lot about how publishing works in the U.K. It may be harder to get a book contract in the first place, especially if you didn’t go to school with the editors. (The intellectual world there seems incredibly small.)

But if you’ve already been published in the U.K., your book enters the U.S. market with advance publicity and the irresistible authority of a British accent. Before it was even available in the U.S., Kassia St. Clair’s The Golden Thread, a far inferior book to The Fabric of Civilization (Really! It’s a mess!), was being featured on NPR. My brother heard the report and texted to tell me I’d been scooped. He wasn’t wrong—even though my book was published here before hers. I wouldn’t be surprised if her agent saw my 2014 Aeon piece and suggested the idea to her. Agents do that sometimes. So do editors, if you’re lucky enough to have one who stays at the job.

The Fabric of Civilization is my only book to be published in the U.K. No British publisher wanted it, so it came out at the same time from the same U.S.-based imprint as the U.S. version. It got a good review in the London Times but no other publicity. It’s just as well. The entire country ran out of copies—because of pessimistic expectations, not huge sales—and, thanks to Covid, could not be replenished before Christmas 2020. When someone wrote me to inquire how to buy one for a gift, my editor determined that the best approach was to order from Amazon in the U.S. Amazon is a mixed blessing for authors. It has probably driven up competition and driven down payments. But it does deliver your goods—and for that, I’m grateful.

1. This was the third editor I had, because they kept quitting their jobs and the book took forever to write. My official excuse was “I had cancer,” but that only delayed things a year. The truth is it was just really hard.

2. New article coming soon there!

3. The exception is The Future and Its Enemies, which did not get reviewed in the NYT, WaPo, LAT, or even Publisher’s Weekly (!). It received a meh review from a meh reviewer in the WSJ. Fortunately, a Reason board member generously funded a tour of about 20 cities where I gave talks at local think tanks and other friendly groups and the magazine’s publicist arranged media interviews. When Brian Lamb interviewed me on C-Span’s Booknotes, the book briefly reached #4 on Amazon, which was, of course, much smaller back then.

4. I know from my experience doing so at Reason that assigning book reviews is a tricky business and the results are impossible to predict. But who assigns a fashion journalist to review a book on economic and science/technology history? Would they have done that if The Fabric of Civilization had been written by Steven Johnson or Matt Ridley or Any Other Man?